The Central Police Investigation Bureau established that a dried-tobacco cutting facility was operating in Lower Silesian Voivodeship. The illegal business was hidden in one of the warehouse halls on the premises of a private company. CBŚP:
During the operation, conducted “red-handed,” officers arrested five suspects aged between 30 and 50. Another suspect was arrested at the same time at his home.
(Five of those arrested are foreign nationals: four Ukrainians and one Belarusian. The sixth suspect is a Polish citizen. Five of them were placed in temporary custody).
The hall where the cutting facility operated contained both a professional tobacco-product packaging line worth approximately one million złotys and a dryer for tobacco cuttings and their humidification. The seized machine had a capacity of 600 kg per hour. Investigators estimate that daily production could have reached nearly 5 tonnes, comparable to the specifications of production lines used by legal manufacturers of this type of product. During the operation, officers also seized a lorry whose trailer contained tobacco without Polish excise stamps.
Investigators:
In the rooms and on the trailer of the lorry, CBŚP officers seized nearly 23 tonnes of excise goods in total, including more than 8 tonnes of dried tobacco, nearly 9 tonnes of smoking tobacco and 6 tonnes of compressed tobacco leaves. The market value of the seized products is approximately PLN 6 million.
According to the officers’ findings, the goods were intended for distribution in Lower Silesian Voivodeship. CBŚP: “Had the ‘illicit’ excise goods entered illegal circulation, the State Treasury would have been exposed to losses of more than PLN 25 million in unpaid excise duty and VAT.
The case is being handled by the District Prosecutor’s Office in Poznań, where the suspects were charged with participation in an organized criminal group and fiscal offences.